African American Humor

Born and raised in the heart of old Dixie, D'aron Davenport finds himself in unfamiliar territory his freshman year at UC Berkeley. Two thousand miles and a world away from his childhood, he is a small-town fish floundering in the depths of a large, hyperliberal pond. Caught between the prosaic values of his rural hometown and the intellectualized, multicultural cosmopolitanism of Berzerkeley, the 19-year-old white kid is uncertain about his place until one disastrous party brings him three idiosyncratic best friends.

John has been evicted and become homeless for the first time in his life. He doesn’t know anyone who has ever been homeless, so he doesn’t know what to do nor where to go in order to get assistance or help. When life takes an unexpected turn, all you can do is GET BACK UP! With little money after unemployment ran out and a fresh eviction, John experiences some unreal and definitely unexpected events that will have you bursting out with laughter to pondering what in the world happened?

The woman she’s had a crush on for years needs a fake girlfriend, and Elana is ready to volunteer for the job! Toya is in a bind. Her little sister is getting married, and her mother is insisting she bring her girlfriend to the wedding. She’d told a little white lie to get her mom off her back, but now it’s backfiring. Her mom thinks she’s in a committed relationship, so Toya needs to find a pretend girlfriend, and fast. Elana fell in love with Toya the minute she set eyes on her. Unfortunately, she somehow went right into the friend zone. Elana has been hesitant to rock the boat, ...

After fourteen years in prison, Gerald “Stew Pot” Reeves, age thirty-one, returns home to live with his mom in Parkland, a black middle-class neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. The residents are in a tailspin, dreading the arrival of the man they remember as a frightening delinquent. The anxiety only grows when Stew Pot announces that he experienced a religious awakening in prison.

With dark humor, Chris L. Terry's Black Card is an uncompromising examination of American identity. In an effort to be "black enough", a mixed-race punk rock musician indulges his own stereotypical views of African American life by doing what his white bandmates call "black stuff". After remaining silent during a racist incident, the unnamed narrator has his Black Card revoked by Lucius, his guide through Richmond, Virginia, where Confederate flags and memorials are a part of everyday life.

She is conducting an interview for High Times while harboring a secret. He runs the largest legal marijuana operation in Colorado and loves money above all else. Can they break through and make sense of their worlds as they come together? Brent Stone I run the biggest legal marijuana operation in Colorado, and I’m not about to let anyone stand in my way as I grow my wealth with weed. After she comes into the picture, so secretive and sexy, I lose my way for a minute. If I’ve learned anything becoming the King of Pot, it’s that money talks and women are a dime a dozen. Still, there’s...

Framed as a reference work of humorous “entries” that offer trenchant social commentary, Everything Abridged presages a dark vision of the near future but tells jokes in the face of it: An intelligence agency operative uncovers a conspiracy to generate conspiracies and realizes his participation in the scheme. A Caribbean monarch meets four decades of American presidents and adjusts his country’s foreign policy accordingly. Experiment participants are asked to bring back a gun as quickly as possible.

“Happy wife. Happy life.” This recurrent phrase has slowly morphed from folksy colloquialism to full-blown mantra by an ever-increasing share of married men all around the modern world. The irony [or the ignominy–depending on which side of the aisle you sit on] being that no such idiom appears to exist in the reverse. Nevertheless, for Bethuel “Bee” Blazey, finding that special someone to stand beside him while he grows his family business has proven to be an exercise in futility. More meme than Kermit the Frog sipping black tea. Introducing, M.A.I.A., short for Modifiable ...

Within these pages are the musings, the revelations, the ruminations, and the reflections of the incomparable Larry Wilmore. Here, collected for the first time, all in one place, are his Black Thoughts. From why black weathermen make him feel happy (or sad) and why brothas don't see UFOs to his search for Black Jesus or his quest to replace "African-American" with "chocolate," Wilmore has finally relented, agreeing to share his unique (black) perspective.

When The Flip Wilson Show debuted in 1970, Black faces were still rare on television, Black hosts nonexistent. So how did Clerow “Flip” Wilson go from Jersey City grade-school dropout to national celebrity, heralded on the cover of Time as “TV’s first black superstar”? Flip is a candid, entertaining biography of a consummate comedian who changed the face of American popular culture.

Wanderlust has taken Jimmy Jay Leander Johnson on numerous adventures, from Mississippi to Washington D.C., Vietnam, London and eventually to Africa, to the fictitious Independent People’s Democratic Republic of Guanaya, where the young musician hopes to “find himself.” But this small sliver of a country in West Africa, recently freed from British colonial rule, is thrown into turmoil with the discovery of cobanium—a radioactive mineral 500 times more powerful than uranium, making it irresistible for greedy speculators, grifters, and charlatans.

Harry Sylvester Bird grows up in Edward, Pennsylvania, with his parents, Wayne and Chevy, whom he greatly dislikes. They’re racist, xenophobic, financially incompetent, and they have quite a few secrets of their own. To Harry, they represent everything wrong with this country. And his small town isn’t any better. He witnesses racial profiling, graffitied swastikas, and White Power signs on his walk home from school. He can’t wait until he’s old enough to leave. When he finally is, he moves straight to New York City, where he feels he can finally live out his true inner self.

Anastasia Moretti ran away from one bad situation only to free fall into another. Yikes! Now this witty mafia princess has to find a way to permanently sever corrupt family ties and establish a new life for herself among the mountains of Idaho. If only that new life didn't bring her face-to-face with racists, incels, and others who dwell in the dark underbelly of society. Among the Woodsman brothers, he carried the name David...though he was built more like Goliath. He specialized in keeping people and their things safe. And he did it well. Will David be able to keep Anastasia safe from ...

In Knucklehead we meet Marcus Hayes, a Black law student who struggles, sometimes unsuccessfully, with the impulse to confront everyday bad behavior with swift and antisocial action. The cause of this impulse is unknown to him. When Marcus unexpectedly becomes involved with the brilliant and kind Amalia Stewart, her love and acceptance pacify his demons. But when his demons return, he is no longer inclined to contain them.

Tosh Livingston, superstar student-athlete from small-town USA, thinks he's made it big as a rising freshman at Harvard University. Not so fast! Once on campus, he's ensnared in a frenzied competition to win a spot on Harvard's legendary humor magazine, the Harpoon. Tosh soon finds that joining the Harpoon is a weird and surprisingly dangerous pursuit. He faces off against a secret society of super-rich kids, gets schooled by a philosophy professor who loves flunking everyone, and teams up with a genius student-cartoonist with an agenda of her own.

Cheena has NEVER BEEN KISSED! That’s right, she still has her lipginity, despite her great personality and voluptuous frame. Dillon, her special online friend, wants to know why and makes it his mission to find out. He finally discovers the harrowing truth when he meets Cheena in person. She discovers one of his big secrets, as well. By then it’s too late. They’re already in love. Now they have to figure out a way to be together that won’t destroy his vital business plans and her very soul.

Mitchell Pierce is a well-off New York ad executive whose marriage is falling apart. He no longer feels any passion for his pregnant wife, Tam, and even feels estranged from his toddler son, Jake. Mitchell is trapped in an unrewarding and loveless life, and though domestic violence isn't in his character, it is never very far away, either. Mitchell's life will irrevocably change one day, though, when a young man appears at his apartment door to pick up the family's black maid, Opal, for a date. Cooley it turns out is not a stranger to the household.

Comedian Cameron B is a man with his back against the wall. The rent is due, his family needs food, and bill collectors are blowing up his phone. Since his career is stalled, he's faced with doing agricultural work to make ends meet...that is until fellow entertainer, Lance the Great, throws him a lifeline - two grand and a proposal. The loan and the opportunity changes Cameron's fortunes, but at what price?

After spending better than two decades working in call centers, I cannot help but notice the glaring similarities shared by call centers in North Texas. The pay is rarely close to the industry standard for the frontline call-taker. Most of the call centers I hired into operated like poorly run daycare centers. Those individuals who were well-liked by management rarely found themselves targets of bathroom break micromanagement and the questionable practices and tactics which made Tina Faye's "Mean Girls" so infamously popular.

Two estranged sisters, one father accused of murder, zero time to catch up. Ivy and Rose share only one thing: a father they don't know. Ivy, an on-leave FBI agent with a predilection for order, and Rose, a reformed hacker with a knack for chaos, are summoned to their father's private investigations office when he goes missing. The sisters come running and finally meet—over his assistant's corpse. With their dad the number-one suspect in this brutal murder, Rose hatches a plan to pose as his partners. She and Ivy tackle a wealthy client's case in a small town with big secrets, all the ...